Googled for your ritual?
 

Has anyone else out there ever picked a small phrase from one of your rituals and googled it just to make sure that no one had published it online?

Yep and no one has. Hopefully no one ever will.

Haha, yes I have. I've found some things, but only because I knew what I was looking for, they weren't anything terribly important either.

Ha, I have also. There's one little tiny part of ours that pops up, but like Gusteau, you'd have to specifically know what words to search for it to pop up. Nothing pops up if you just type "Alpha Xi Delta Ritual", so I'd imagine that anyone trying to figure it out would have a pretty tough time.

^^Exactly. As an informed searcher you can turn something up, but if you type in, for example, "Delta Chi Secret Motto" you'll get a bunch of funny wrong answers, if anything.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

I've done that.

I've found the full text of several rituals posted online.

Won't say where, nor am I sure the page is indexed by Google.

Does Google (or any search engine for that matter) save the search queries?

Yes, you can go back and look at your own, *but* you have to be signed in to google and you can clear the queries...

OTOH, given that google doesn't know what fraternity I belong to, or that I am googling for a ritual, how much is really revealed if it sees someone googling "4 men who came together for the best of purposes".

I guess it depends on the search results? I recall hearing somewhere that a particular search engine saves queries and results and uses them to find better matches. I guess if it's already on the internet there's not a whole lot I can do about it, but I don't want to help a search engine perfect its methods of finding my (hell, anyone else's) ritual.

Then again, I am kinda paranoid :o

One of the first things that comes up for me is a reminder of <unsavory anthrax-toting characters>, and the whole taco incident. *shudder* What a great thing to be tied to any part of our org, let alone to ritual.

I have googled for ritual before and found bits & pieces (much false, some true) but not the full book. Kevin, I've either seen the same site or know of another.

lol. ours is on wikipedia.

I think the proper thing to do is if you do find such info, to let a moderator or someone you know in that organization that the info is out there. Or, even email the HQ yourself. I think it's the kind thing to do. I know that I would want someone stumbling onto mine to let someone in authority know.

I actually received an e-mail from HQ regarding this issue earlier in the semester. It was pretty much along the lines of: "We don't even want to dignify this with a response, but since so many people have brought it to our attention we'll briefly address the issue. If you find fraternity and sorority Rituals online please respect the organization and do not read them. If you find our own secrets, or anyone's, just ignore them. Non members will never fully understand our values, so don't even bother validating this with a response."

Well said!!!

oh thank goodness. Ours used to be on a site....i searched just now and it's actually no longer there. YAY!

I agree. :D

Nationals has been trying to get ours taken down for a while. :( Since it's been validated, though, the place is set on keeping it up.

I hope that you and the other organizations involved are successful in this pursuit.

Then again, as mentioned before, reading your (own) ritual and experiencing it with all of your senses - especially hearing and seeing it in action - are two completely different things. We can at least take comfort in knowing that.

unfortunately, our entire ritual is on the internet.

You have very wise men at your headquarters!

Also excellent advice.

Someone once posted part of our ritual online, but it was so bastardized that the absolutes and meaning were completely lost. There was a fraternity guy at my school who would pressure women to tell him at least their handshake - and then he'd pass it on to anyone who wanted to hear it. I wouldn't want that type of person anywhere near my GLO!!!

I searched for ours...if you search for the exact phrase that Alpha Phi stands for you can find one website that correctly guessed it, but nothing that comes close to the full ritual. If you didn't know what you were searching for there is no way you could find it, which is of course fine with me. :)

Yeah I even tried googling the meaning behind the Psi Upsilon and nothing popped up. so happy.

Aside from our whole ritual being out, I did happen to Google certain key parts that you would have to know by going through and some of them brought up results.

Sad face again. :(

But I guess that's expected when your Fraternity is the size of Montana.

I haven't been able to find Kappa's full ritual online (thank goodness!) but I have found a few secret things. Luckily, the only way I was able to find them was by typing in the exact phrasing from the ritual, which obviously no one but a Kappa would know to search for. It's also a relief that the true things are mixed in with a LOT of misinformation and wrong guesses! :D

Actually, to be specific, DU's Ritual is not on Wikipedia, only the text of our Oath. The Ritual Book IS on the Fraternity website and is linked to the Wikipedia article...(I should know; I wrote the new DU article) :)

I'm glad to say that I tried to google it, but I couldn't find Phi Sigma Sigma's ritual!

At least 2 full rituals were posted on GC several years ago.

I'm not quite sure what the point would be, for a person not associated with a sorority or fraternity to attempt to find rituals? It just doesn't make sense. It wouldn't mean anything to them and it would take a lot of effort on their part. Not to mention a lot of previous research into the fraternity / sorority that they were trying to find ritual on.

Seems like a lot of time and effort for not much of an outcome.

What do they get out of it? Just the fact that they have found a sorority or fraternity's secrets?

I don't really get it . . .

yes I remember those two...tragic!